House panel subpoenas Blinken over Afghanistan withdrawal
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Annapolis, Maryland, last month. Photo: Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images
The House Foreign Affairs Committee chair subpoenaed Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday to provide further testimony on the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The big picture: Rep. Michael McCaul's (R-Texas) office said in a statement that Blinken "must appear before the committee" on Sept. 19, 2024, "or face contempt" charges.
Driving the news: "The Committee is holding this hearing because the Department of State was central to the Afghanistan withdrawal and served as the senior authority during the August non-combatant evacuation operation," McCaul wrote in a letter to Blinken Tuesday.
- McCaul's office said he issued the subpoena because Blinken had refused previous requests to appear before the panel.
- But State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a media statement that Blinken was unable to testify on the requested dates and had suggested "reasonable alternatives" to comply with McCaul's request.
- The House Foreign Affairs Committee is due to release a report on Sept. 9 on its findings into the U.S. troop withdrawal in the summer of 2021, which saw an attack in Kabul kill 13 U.S. service members as American forces pulled out of Afghanistan.
What they're saying: McCaul said in his letter that Blinken was "the final decisionmaker" for the State Department on the withdrawal and evacuation from Afghanistan.
- "You are therefore in a position to inform the Committee's consideration of potential legislation aimed at helping prevent the catastrophic mistakes of the withdrawal, including potential reforms to the Department's legislative authorization," McCaul wrote.
The other side: "It is disappointing that instead of continuing to engage with the Department in good faith, the Committee instead has issued yet another unnecessary subpoena," Miller said in his media statement, which emphasized that Blinken had given congressional testimony on the matter 14 times — including four times before McCaul's panel.
Between the lines: Former President Trump and other Republicans have sought to blame the Biden administration for the chaos surrounding the withdrawal.
- However, a U.S. State Department report published last year found poor planning among senior officials during both the Trump and Biden administrations contributed to this.
Zoom out: The matter has been increasingly politicized in the leadup to November's elections.
- Democrats slammed Trump staffers for a possible altercation with an Arlington National Cemetery official over photography at a gravesite of U.S. service members killed in the 2021 Kabul airport bombing, which the campaign insists they were permitted to take.
- The Harris campaign criticized Trump for posing for photos at the gravesite, which the GOP nominee said was at the request of families of U.S. service members killed in the attack, who had invited him to the commemoration.
Go deeper: U.S. admits Afghanistan evacuation should have begun sooner
